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Monday, February 05, 2018

Reader's Diary #1724- Rufino Blanco-Fombola: Créole Democracy

Not surprisingly with a title like "Créole Democracy", this tale by Rufino Blanco-Fombola is highly political in nature.

I believe there's something lost in translation as the story seems to keep a sterile distance and ends a bit abruptly, but it still manages to provoke some serious thoughts about fear and its impact on democracy, the dangers of highly polarized societies and so forth. More interesting in 2018 I think is that, set in Venezuela, if you asked many Canadians a couple of years back if such an extreme scenario was possible here, we'd probably say, "yes, but unlikely." Now with what's going on with our nearest southern neighbour, I'm thinking we'd be much more scared.